《My insomnia is killing you》C001 Waking up is never easy
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Morning is for most people a time to welcome a new day in their beds with a casual yawn while opening their eyes and realizing there is another routine day in front of them.
Unless it was a weekend or a holiday that is the truth for most adults. They are happy to wake up until reality kicks in. The gloominess of reality is usually offset by the hectic workday which leaves little time to contemplate about the meaning of life or how you got to this point of your life. Those that are unhappy and still manage to contemplate on such topics usually also end their life sooner than those who don't.
For the protagonist of this story his morning began in an idyllic forest with lush tall trees over 50 meters tall. Birds chirping, bunnies hopping, deers prancing in the forest of fairy tales.
With the nearby brook's gentle sound of flowing water you could almost hear Edvard Grieg's Morning mood.
As our main character opened his eyes he was not welcomed by the sound of a flute but instead by the buzzing of flies and screeching of two crows that were fighting for the rights of devouring the eyes of the corpse that was on top of him.
As he pushed himself from under the corpse, the metallic scent of blood became more apparent mixed with the smell of broken intestines that left their home. The crows hastily retreated to a safe distance as their breakfast suddenly came back from the dead and wearily observed from tree branches a few meters away.
The corpse was quite heavy and our hero needed a lot of time to pull himself away from under it. His movements made the smells more prominent, and he was retching even before he could crawl out. He finally managed to grab a tree root and pulled his legs from under the bloody corpse.
While breathing heavily he stood up and looked around. He saw then that this was not the only corpse. There were corpses all around him circling a depression in the ground which looked like a bomb exploded in it.
As he came to his senses a pain shot through his jaw. He gritted his teeth, but that only made the pain worse. Touching the right side of his face he noticed the swelling. He could not open his jaw for more than a few millimeters before pain assaulted him and shot towards his brain like the worst headache imaginable. He gently used his tongue to check his teeth, and they were the same number on both sides.
'Where am I? Who am I?' He yelled in his mind as he grabbed the sides of his head and pulled on his hair with both hands.
He looked towards the nearest corpse and even with the face being in somewhat decent condition it looked completely unfamiliar to him. The man looked to be around forty years old with a crooked nose, wild long dirty brown shoulder length hair and thick lips.
He looked at this man's attire next and it was some kind of leather armour, with leather pants and shoes. He looked down on himself and other than the rusty dark red bloodstains his clothes were grey. He had a grey short-sleeved top with grey pants both of which didn't even have hems on the openings and were crudely made. A string ran through some holes in his pants that was tied in front and was responsible for holding his pants up. He didn't even have shoes and by the amount of calluses on his feet he was probably always barefooted. He touched his crotch and noticed he was going commando. He didn't have any underwear on him.
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On the right side of the body, he suddenly noticed a sword.
'The man must have dropped it when the bomb exploded.', he thought as he noticed an empty scabbard on the man's hip.
As he reached for the sword and was about to take it into his arms, it suddenly flashed with a green overlay. He didn't get startled by the green overlay but by the fact that after that happened the sword disappeared.
He looked around but there was no one to be found anywhere. While doing so he found some more weapons around the corpses. As he was trying to pick up another sword, he moved slowly and when it flashed green again he saw a line of text on top of his vision.
It read: "Place in inventory. (Y/N)."
This time the sword stayed in place as he contemplated. As soon as he reached the conclusion of yes in his mind, the sword disappeared.
He was taken aback with what happened and looked around as if looking for someone who was pranking him.
As there was no one he soon calmed down.
He thought about what this inventory might be and a transparent grid menu surrounded him all of a sudden. All but two spaces that occupied the two swords were empty squares.
As he focused on the first slot occupying a sword, the sword popped out. From a small image it enlarged itself to occupy half of his whole viewpoint. The other half had the sword's description.
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Item name: Common iron one-handed sword
Quality: Low
Durability: 9/10
Damage: 1-4
Special effects: none
Description: An iron sword produced by a novice blacksmith.
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He looked through the description and somehow managed to close it although unsure how.
Checking the other one he saw.
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Item name: Common iron one-handed sword
Quality: Low
Durability: 7/10
Damage: 1-3
Special effects: none
Description: An iron sword produced by a novice blacksmith.
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It was almost the same, only a bit more worn out and had a duller edge. As he was looking at it he noticed an equip option popping up after a few seconds of his gaze being in one place.
He thought, ‘equip’, and suddenly he could feel the sword in his right hand and it plopped on the ground with it's tip down while he still held the handle. He thought about how to close the inventory and it went away.
The sword in his hand felt heavy. Although it was specified as one handed, he needed to use both hands to lift and swing it.
He gave it a couple of random swings out of desperation and anger of not understanding anything about his situation, which looked more like someone swinging a stick, before he felt out of breath and fell down on his behind gasping for air.
He let go of the sword and returned it to his inventory. As he looked at the surrounding scene he pressed his hands on his forehead and supported them on his knees.
'What is happening to me', he yelled in his head while suddenly hearing music. If he could recognise it he would know 'Where is my mind by Pixies' was playing in his head.
After a couple of minutes of pointless self reflection he finally accepted his circumstances and turned toward one of the corpses. He planned to search them for clues to his identity and get some much-needed supplies like food, water or even medicine from them.
As he was about to look through the nearest corpse's armour it flashed green again and he stored it in his inventory. The teleportation of the armour into his virtual space was instantaneous and the corpse was left with an undershirt on which all the grime, dried up blood and hidden objects fell as they lost support of it.
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He checked his inventory and noticed the armour in slot number three which was now clean albeit with noticeable tearing from the damage it sustained from the blast.
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Item name: Common leather armour
Quality: Low
Durability: 4/10
Defense: 4
Special effects: none
Description: A leather armour made by a novice armourer.
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As he looked it over in the inventory, he noticed he could freely rotate it and zoom-in on any detail he wished with just a thought.
The breastplate was made from many horizontal layers of leather and fur with squared edges with large openings for arms. The arms were left unprotected. It covered only the front and a part of the back. The back was also where the attachment straps were in the middle and they offered no real protection to the man's spine.
There was a hole in the breastplate where the blast damaged it and was the obvious cause of death of the unlucky fellow.
He equipped it and it conformed to his body size like if it was made for him which would make anyone amazed in any circumstances but with the appearance of the inventory it was an almost expected feature.
The armour was not too heavy for him, and he could still move normally while wearing it.
He started picking up everything else which he could get his hands on. Pants, shoes, undergarments and even underwear. Although it seemed kind of disgusting he figured since he didn't have to touch them and only the fabric part will go into the inventory they will be clean and ready to use.
He also picked up every personal item the dead bodies had on them and soon he was almost at the maximum capacity of his 100-slot inventory.
As he looked at it, the items were randomly strewn all over the slots in the same order in which he picked them up. He wished to order them by type and they flashed and rearranged themselves by categories. First were weapons, armours, clothes, potions, food, water containers, books and miscellaneous stuff.
He equipped the underwear and the breeze he was feeling on his crotch area was gone. Afterwards he put the best preserved items of each category on himself. Now he was in full brown leather armour. With a dagger in one hand and a bow with a quiver full of arrows on his back.
He took out a waterskin, and some dried cured meat he found and started eating a couple of meters away from now a bunch of naked dead bodies. He had to cut the meat into tiny pieces and swallow them whole since he could not open his jaw. Even washing them down with the water from the waterskin presented a challenge since most water ran down his neck instead of into his throat.
'I should move from here now before some predators arrive' He reminded himself.
He looked around and walked towards the sound of water coming nearby. It was a clear brook running through the woods a meter lower than the land as the channel it made eroded the soil. He decided to follow it upstream so he will have access to flowing water.
Other than the occasional growl from wild beasts and chirping of birds the forest was quiet. It was going to be midday soon, and the sun was shining through the leaves and bouncing on the water illuminating the forest with reflections.
The natural beauty was lost on him though as he contemplated his next move. As he was moving upstream he came upon a small lake which was flowing into the stream. He used the pond as a mirror and what he could see was a young teenager looking back at him.
His short unruly dirty brown hair and the dirty face made quite the contrast compared to his clean clothing he got from scavenging the dead. The clothing soon found its way back into the inventory, and he went into the pond.
He was trying to rub himself of the grime and dried blood but he was getting nowhere. The dirt on him was layered not just from the blast but probably weeks or months of not caring about hygiene. As he rubbed the grime kept forming small balls of sticky substance which he just kept smearing across his body.
He looked through the inventory and luckily found some soap.
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Item name: Carbolic soap
Quality: Low
Special effects: none
Description: Soap. It gets the job done.
---------------------------------
He took it out and smelled it. He found the smell awful since it smelled like tar.
'Beggars can't be choosers.' He sighed and scrubbed his skin and kept rinsing in the cold water.
Eventually he managed to scrub off the sticky substances from his body and even his hair went from dark brown to light brown.
When he came out of the water he got an undershirt from the inventory and wiped himself off. Then he put it back in and watched as the water fell from mid-air where the undershirt was just a moment before. He repeated the process until he was dry and then got himself back fully clothed.
He was tired and low on energy so he tried eating and drinking again while sitting down on a log beside the pond.
After a while he went to the other side of the pond and found the stream again and followed upstream some more. Eventually he came to another pond and a small waterfall of about 10 meters in height. He went around the cliff where there was a less vertical slope and climbed it. After going through the dense forest he came out to a couple of hundred meters cliff.
'A dead end.' He thought and was about to turn around when he noticed a stream coming from a cave in the cliff. The cave was V shaped with a circular dome of collapsed rock on top. It was in the shape of a giant mushroom with a small stream running on the bottom of it and was about 5 meters high. He could easily climb the walls since they were just like 5 cm steps so he climbed them and came to a plateau which was a piece of flat rock about 4 by 5 meters wide and about a meter to two meters in height.
He stuck every piece of soft clothing he was not wearing in the corner of the cave and used some of them to cover himself up. It didn't take long before he felt nice and cozy and the sound of the spring rolling through the cave to overwhelm him and he fell asleep.
When he woke up he tried to open his eyes, and they would not move. His eyelids were shut and he could not move them no matter how hard he tried.
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